For Molnar, who is now a senior research fellow at Central European University, the experience still smarts, eight years on.

NEWYORKER: Search and Destroy

MBAs were pioneered in 1989 by George Soros's (private) Central European University.

ECONOMIST: Central European universities

He has been a visiting scholar at the Central European University in Prague and at Fudan University in Shanghai and is currently professor of economics at Towson University in Maryland.

FORBES: James Dorn - International Political Economy

To assess the impact of these changes, and better understand what MBA admissions are looking for in their applicants, I asked Pete Johnson, former executive director of Admissions for the full-time program at Berkeley-Haas, and now colleague and advisory director at Fortuna Admissions, and vice president of Student Services at Central European University in Budapest for his perspective.

FORBES: Connect